In Conversation with Miao at Aneberry, Contemporary Made to Measure Dresses

Aneberry is the brainchild of Miao who was searching for her own wedding dress at the time , but was frustrated that she couldn’t find a dress that was beautiful, fitted her well and did not cost a fortune. Following much research, Miao set up Aneberry to help brides like herself find a stunning made-to-measure dress at an affordable price.

With the concept of keeping things simple, and prices transparent, you can browse through the collection online and book your appointment at Aneberry’s London showroom.

Once you’ve chosen the design you like, your measurements will be taken and all you then have to do is wait for your dream dress to arrive.

Aneberry’s features a range of on trend yet timeless dresses including a fabulously frothy vintage style tea gown, mermaid styles and the oh so flattering A-line dresses with lace bodices to name but a few. Over to Miao now to tell you more.

Tell us a little about yourself and your business

My name is Miao and I’m the founder of Aneberry. We make beautiful made-to-measure wedding dresses at an affordable price!

We take a different approach from traditional bridal brands. We tailor each dress to fit our bride’s unique body shape. By cutting out the middlemen, designing our dresses in-house, and selling directly to our customers, we are able to deliver beautiful, high quality and well-fitted wedding dresses at a fair price. Our dresses start at £695 and the highest price is £995. All our dresses are made to your exact measurements, so there are no alteration costs!

We know our brides don’t like complicated procedures, so we make things simple. Brides can easily browse our collections online and the prices are transparent. The appointments are free and they can be easily booked on our website. With the made-to-measure services, the brides don’t have to go through a lengthy process of making alterations.

What motivated you to start your business?

When I was looking for my own wedding dress, I wanted something that was beautiful but did not cost a fortune. I had a maximum budget of about £1000, but I really struggled. I went to a few bridal shops but found most of the dresses were out of my price range. I also realised that I couldn’t fit into a standard size, which meant I would have to pay for alterations, that’s another £200-£300 at least. So I thought why am I wasting time and money having a dress made and then paying a lot more to tailor it down. Why not just make the dress directly to my size?

I did a lot of research and realised why dresses are so expensive. In the supply chain, there are designers, dress makers, distributors and bridal shops and each group will want to take a cut of the profit, as a result dress prices are pushed higher. I thought, why not design the dresses in-house and sell directly to customers, cutting out the middlemen and passing the savings to the customers.

If our readers were to order from you, what can they expect?

Our process is : First, brides choose a style from our collections, then we’ll take their measurements, and make the dresses for them. As the dress is made to their unique measurements, the dress will fit them straight away without any alterations.

As our dresses are individually made to fit each bride’s unique body shape, it will enable them to feel comfortable and look amazing on their wedding day.

Our dresses take 4 months to make. They are made using the finest materials and handcrafted by experienced dressmakers. There are built-in corsets, lining layers, supporting net and embellishments, so they look absolutely stunning.

How can couples judge if a bridal company is the right fit for their wedding?

I think you should have a budget in mind and see whether the company meets your expectations for your budget.

Look on their website to find information about what dress styles they have, do they have styles you would like to try. Understand their procedure, how long is the lead time, how much do they charge for alterations and how long does the alterations process take.

Book an appointment with them and try their sample dresses in person. If they allow you to take photos, compare with other dresses you have tried or you are going to try.

Make a final decision taking consideration of overall styles, quality and price, and decide which dress you are going to go ahead with and go back for a final appointment.

Allow more than enough time in case you still want to make changes to some of the details just before the wedding.

The bigger picture – does your business offer goods/services outside of the wedding world? Tell us more

We currently only offer bride’s wedding dresses in the UK. We have a showroom in London where brides can come in and try our dresses. Our dresses can be also ordered online.

What have you got planned for the next 12 months?

We want to create more exciting new styles and help more brides get a better fitting wedding dress.

And finally, what or who inspires you and why?

Aneberry is inspired by modern brides who stay true to themselves, who are comfortable with their real look and their natural figure, who are not afraid to be different, who are having fun and making a positive impact.

At Aneberry, we are promoting natural body images, we use size 10 models rather than super skinny size 0 models, when we use make-up we use it to enhance models natural features rather than covering up and recreating a new face with heavy layers.